A touch of strong colour

click photo to enlarge
Ever since mankind has created pictures colour has been a key element of the armoury of the artist. Colour is powerful, seductive, noticeable and descriptive. But, as photographers who favour black and white often claim, it can overwhelm an image, introduce a note or mood the artist doesn't require, or detract from the essence of what is offered. Consequently, artists have often sought to use colour sparingly, recognising as cooks do with their herbs and spices, that a little can go a long way. Since the rise of colour photography that has been one of the approaches that photographers have adopted too.

Several years ago, when I was more involved than I am today with the wider photographic community, I acquired a reputation for photographs that included a strong but small note of vivid colour (often red) in an otherwise relatively muted colour palette. In fact, my second post on PhotoReflect, way back on 24th December 2005, "The Power of Colour" both exemplifies and discusses that approach to composition. I continue to periodically produce photographs with that characteristic, such as this photograph of a ladybird or this one of a snagged red net bag by the sea.

One recent morning, on a shopping trip to Sleaford, Lincolnshire, I had the opportunity to add another such image to my collection. By a small pond, at the end of a wooden walkway that stretched from the path to a small fishing jetty, was a bright orange life belt. The overnight frost had laid a veneer of white over timber and vegetation, reducing the impact of these colours and emphasising the vivid orange circle. Holding my camera above my head to make more of the timber path and rails as a line into the composition I took the photograph that I offer today.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Colour, fishing boats and aspect ratios

click photo to enlarge

"When you look at a colour picture you see the colour before you look at the message."
David Bailey (1938- ), English photographer

The quote above is taken from a recent interview that David Bailey gave to the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Being David Bailey, the interview is full of quotable utterances, some of them insightful, others outrageous and a few that are intended, I'm sure, to "take the mickey". But, sticking with this statement on colour, here it is in context: "...black and white gives you the message immediately. Colour’s a warning thing. Berries are red so that the birds know to eat them. When they’re green they don’t eat them. When you look at a colour picture you see the colour before you look at the message. " I don't agree with Bailey on the first part of this. Black and white can give you the pattern before the message. Moreover, sometimes monochrome overlays the artist's message with meaning that derives from the medium. But, I do think that the last sentence is often true, and I think it is a positive aspect of working in colour. Colours do seduce the eye, and it usually happens immediately, before subject, line, composition, and rest come into play. It happened to me this morning when I decided to photograph these fishing boats on The Haven in Boston, Lincolnshire. The sun was strong, the light was harsh, and there were no clouds in the sky - not my favourite photographic weather. But when I looked at the boats I saw three primary colours in a row - yellow, red and blue - and I thought that this sequence was enough to hang a photograph on, despite the countervailing circumstances.

However, there was one thing I knew I'd have to do wth this subject: change the aspect ratio from 3:2 to 4:3. I find myself doing it reasonably frequently with my current camera. It wasn't something that bothered me too much in the days of 35mm film, but having used a 4/3 digital camera for several years I have come to appreciate the less elongated shape of 4:3.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 75mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On